From New Wave to the Eurovision Song Contest!
Katrina and The Waves was an English New Wave band with half-American members that started out as a covers band.
After recording some tunes as The Waves to sell at gigs, they garnered interest from a Canadian record label and released their first album exclusively in Canada in 1983.
On this first album, there was an early version of Going Down To Liverpool, one of the band’s most popular tunes. This would soon be covered by The Bangles.
Released in Canada on the official debut was also their signature song, Walking On Sunshine, although this is not the version that became a hit.
The second album, Katrina And The Waves 2 didn’t do so well; no hits here. When re-released in 2010, it came with covers of Wild Thing and River Deep, Mountain High; perhaps that would have worked at the time.
Next, the 1985 self-titled album featured a re-recorded Going Down To Liverpool and Walking On Sunshine, now for a major label (Capitol). This is when Walking On Sunshine actually became a hit, selling 2 million copies worldwide.
Their fourth album, the second for Capitol, was called Waves (1986), and unfortunately, it was a flop. Only Sun Street generated a bit of interest as a single.
This led Capitol to move them to a smaller label where they released Break of Hearts in 1989, just maintaining the distribution power of Capitol.
After this was another flop, Katrina and The Waves were dropped. But did they give up? No chance!
In the early ’90s, they kept recording; one notable tune was a cover of The Animals‘ We Gotta Get Out Of This Place for a TV series called China Beach.
In the late ‘90s, they made a proper comeback by entering and winning the Eurovision Song Contest.
The tune they won with was Love Shine A Light in the year 1997. You’d think this was going to be what galvanized the group to give it another go, but instead, Katrina fell out with the Waves. After arguing about it for a while, the band kept going with a new singer, keeping the name.
A year later, they must have realized this was not the best idea, as the band dissolved in 1999.
Katrina And The Waves Tunes | Related Pages
River Deep – Mountain High
You can learn how to play River Deep – Mountain High by Tina Turner using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| Bb N.C | N.C | Eb | Eb | Eb | Eb | Bb | Bb |
When I was a little girl, I had a rag doll, only doll I’ve ever owned…
Walking On Sunshine
You can learn how to play Walking On Sunshine by Katrina & The Waves using chords, lyrics, chord analysis, a chord chart, and the original recording.
| Bb | Eb | F | Eb | Bb | Eb | F | Eb |
I used to think maybe you loved me now baby I’m sure…
Katrina And The Waves on the web
Artists & Bands
Behind every single tune you learn, there’s an artist or band with an entire catalogue of music, waiting to be discovered.
Find out more about these great Artists & Bands, and let their tunes guide you to success.
About me | Dan Lundholm
This was an article about Katrina And The Waves tunes, by Dan Lundholm. Discover more about him and how you can learn guitar with Spytunes.
Most importantly, find out why you should learn guitar through playing tunes, not practising scales, and studying theory in isolation.
